yeah. I can user order by in a single query, but I want to order all of the query results. I think I have to make another set of queries to designate one query as #1, then the second as #2, etc. Then I can post the new variables into the code

You can probably do this in one query instead of 5. Show us what your tables look like. Show only the table names and relevant field names, we don't want to slog through all 45 tables in your database.

You said you just needed average donations per society. That is what the query gives you.

If you need to factor in the people too, that can be done as well, but you need to state what your actually trying to accomplish so we can accurately help you.

that query doesn't separate out the societies. It would give me all of the different values in the field which are numerous. Some people have multiple societies, but there are not multiple rows - instead the field keeps those options in the field itself. So there may be 100 different values in the table for "society" but there are only 10 societies. I think I will try something like you proposed but use DISTINCT and some WHERE "or" variables.

SELECT DISTINCT cb_society, ROUND( AVG( donation ) ) AS donation
FROM jos_comprofiler
WHERE donation !=0
AND cb_society LIKE '%Richmond%'
OR cb_society LIKE '%Northern VA%'
OR cb_society LIKE '%Battlefield%'
ORDER BY donation

These society fields can have only one society in them or many like this: [Richmond|*|Southside|*|Battlefield] so I need to make sure that I average the amount for each specific society and not just for each society entry.

that query doesn't separate out the societies. It would give me all of the different values in the field which are numerous. Some people have multiple societies, but there are not multiple rows - instead the field keeps those options in the field itself. So there may be 100 different values in the table for "society" but there are only 10 societies. I think I will try something like you proposed but use DISTINCT and some WHERE "or" variables.

Sorry, I forgot the GROUP BY in mine. ManiacDan's should be correct though to get you the average per society.